Feeding out device in storage containers for rod-like parallel articles



O United States Patent [111 3,545,593

[72] Inventor Nils Wallenborn [56] References Cited Johanneshov, Sweden UNITED STATES PATENTS 1 1 pp 764-132 3,355,004 11/1967 Rupert 198/53X 1 Filed (M1, 1968 687,343 11/1901 Schilz 221mm [45] Patented Dec. 8,1970 FOREIGN PATENTS [73] Assignee Areneo Aktiebolag smckholmvamngbhsweden 649,746 12/ 1962 Italy 221/201 [32] Priority Oct 13. 1967 204,209 5/1966 Sweden 221/178 [33] Sweden 440,106 12/1967 Switzerland 221/253 1 14077/67 Primary Examiner-Robert B. Reeves Assistant Examiner-David A. Scherbel Attorney-Sughrue, Rothwell, Mion, Zinn & MacPeak ABSTRACT: An arrangement for discharging rod-shaped objects lyin arallel to each other, es ecially ci ars, ci ar [54] FEEDING OUT DEVICE m STORAGE bunches o r arettes from a stora e co htainer rcfilided w ith TAINERS son ROD-LIKE PARALLEL g g P CON a discharge shaft in the bottom of the container, said bottom ARTICLES comprising two support members made of flexible material 12 Claims 8 Drawing Figs and extending in the transverse direction of the objects from [52] U.S.Cl. 198/53, two opposite sidewalls of the container towards each other 198/45 221/178 and around two shafts forming spaced-apart rollers located [51] Int. Cl. 865d 47/18 parallel to the objects and rotatably mounted on a stand sec- [50] FieldolSearch 221/175, tion moving back and forth in relation to the container 178, 179, 182, 186, 289,290, 200, 201, 204, 260, between said sidewalls, each support member being kept taut 237, 253; 198/44, 45, 53 by stretching means.

20 a 15 2 I a 1,

4 6 .5 o to 17 I o I 27 9 0 l4 .5 24 22 2'2 4 I 28 23 I8 7" 76 0 o 15 21 1 1 l 1 l I 1 l 3 PATENTEU DEC 8 I970 SHEET 2 BF 3 FEEDING OUT DEVICE IN STORAGE CONTAINERS FOR ROD-LIKE PARALLEL ARTICLES The present invention relates to an arrangement in containers for rod-shaped objects lying parallel to each other, especially cigars or cigar bunches, and provided with a discharge shaft located in the bottom of the container, which shaft is movable back and forth in relation to the container in the transverse direction of the objects.

In known arrangements of this kind the bottom of the container comprises a cylindrical surface of a piston, which can be rotated back and forth and which is provided with a diametrically located discharge shaft. The objects are largely prevented from arching by the fact that the inlet opening of the shaft in the container bottom is movable back and forth.

An inconvenience, however, is that the objects are squeezed against the edges of the shaft inlet opening and rotational movements are imparted to them by friction against the movable cylindrical surface, whereby objects such as cigars, cigar bunches and cigarettes are easily damaged.

The object of the present invention is to effect an arrangement in which the above inconveniences are eliminated and which, in addition, can be implemented with substantially smaller demands on space.

This has been achieved according to the invention in that the bottom of the container comprises two longitudinally extending members made of a highly flexible material, extending in the transverse direction of the objects and suitable for supporting them, each member being attached to one of two opposite sidewalls of the container and kept taut by a tensile force acting upon it. Each member extends towards the other and around one of the two rollers rotatably mounted parallel to the objects and attached to a base part movable in relation to the container, with a distance between the rollers adapted to the width of the discharge shaft.

A substantial advantage of the invention is that the bottom of the container is essentially immobile in relation to the container. Thus no rotation is imparted to the objects on the container bottom when the shaft passes an object, the object will first drop down into the inlet opening of the shaft and then be raised up under positive influence from the support members at the edges of the shaft, the movement thus having the character of a continuous wave motion.

The two support members may each comprise a broad belt of rubber or plastic, for example, or two parallel thin belts or strips, the support members being provided with thin ends, which are wound around the respective rollers. The rollers may also be constructed as pulley rollers and the support members wound round separate wind-on and wind-off rollers rotatably mounted in the movable base section.

In order to stretch the support members, the rollers used for winding the support members on and off must in both cases be driven, this being suitably effected by providing the support members with sprocket wheels meshing with a chain, which is firmly fixed in relation to the container, or a corresponding transmission, e.g. a gear wheel and rack. The rollers may also be mutually connected by a chain, the wind-on roller being driven by the wind-off roller. The support members can be kept stretched more easily if they are connected to the container, or a part, which is connected to it, by means of resilient fastening members. Driving the wind-on and wind-off rollers during simultaneous elastic stretching of the support members can also be effected by applying a continuously operating torque to the rollers, e.g. by means of long coiled springs, which act between the movable stand section and the rollers. If sprocket wheels, gear wheels or the like are used to drive the rollers, torsion can be effected by means of resilient members placed between the wheels and the rollers.

In a simple embodiment of the invention, each support member extends around one of two additional rollers mounted on the movable stand section, each support member having a free end firmly connected to the container or the end of the same member, which is connected to the containers sidewall. This embodiment requires the same space in the direction of movement of the movable stand section as the known arrangement with the rotary piston described above. A reduction of the demand on space can easily be achieved, however, by connecting the two support members with each other via pulley rollers firmly fixed in relation to the container, to form a single endless loop. Where the carrier member comprises a single wide belt, the loop must normally extend around the top of the container. When using a carrier member in the form of two parallel belts or strips, the loop can be divided into two arbitrarily placed branches running on either side of the container.

The invention will be further clarified below with reference to the accompanying drawings, which diagrammatically illustrate a number of embodiments:

FIG. 1 is a vertical projection, partly insection, of an arrangement for filling a belt provided with press compartments and advanced step'by-step, with cigars;

FIG. 2 shows in section an example of the means of driving a wind-on and wind-off roller taken along lines II-ll;

FIG. 3 is a section through the belt with the press compartments in FIG. 1 taken along lines III-III;

FIG. 4 shows a modified form of the wind-on and wind-off rollers in FIG. 1; and

FIGS. 5-8 show a further four embodiments in the same projection as in FIG. 1.

The arrangement shown in FIG. 1 has a stand 1, on which a container 2 for cigars is placed. A movable stand section 4 is mounted so that it may slide along two guides 3.

One end of a wide rubber belt 5 is fixed in the stand 1 by means of springs 6 attached at 6' and 11' to the stand 1. The belt 5 extends from the lower edge of a wall 7 of the container 2 around a pulley roller 8 rotatably mounted on the stand section 4 and is then wound around a roller 9 likewise rotatably mounted on the stand section 4 and to which this end of the belt 5 is fixed. In the same way, a belt 10 is fixed by one end in the stand 1 via springs 11. The belt 10 extends from the lower edge of a wall 12 of the container, around a pulley roller 13, which is rotatably mounted on the stand section 4 and is wound on to a roller 14, likewise rotatably mounted on the stand section 4.

The stand section 4 is further provided with a pulley roller 15 across which runs a belt 17 provided with press compartments 16 and two pulley rollers 18, which abut the upper side of the edges of the belt 17 outside the press compartments in such a way that the belt 17 describes an S-shaped path. When the belt 17 is bent over the pulley roller 15 the compartments 16 are enlarged and at this point on the stand section 4 is the outlet opening of a channel 19 firmly fixed to the stand section, for supplying cigars 20 to the press compartments 16. The upper end of the channel 19 is located in the space between the pulley rollers 8, 13 through which the cigars 20 fall down into the channel 19.

The belt 17 is intended to be driven step-by-step, for example in the direction shown by an arrow 21, cigars being supplied to the press compartments 16 only during the idle periods. For this purpose a latching arm 22 with a iatching plate 23 is mounted on the stand section 14 and can be pivoted between two stops 24 so that the latching plate 23 can be inserted beneath the lower outlet opening of the channel 19.

A rectilinearly reciprocating arm 25 is hinged to the latching arm 22 to drive both the movable stand section 4 and the latching arm 22. The wind-on and wind-off rollers 9, 14 are each provided with a sprocket wheel 26 firmly attached to the roller, which sprocket wheel rolls into engagement with a chain 27 firmly attached to the stand 1 when the movable stand section 4 moves, the initial rotational setting of the rollers 9, 14 being so adjusted that the belts 5, 10 are stretched to the necessary extent.

The arrangement shown in FIGS. 1-3 operates in the following way. While the belt 17 is at rest, the arm 25 is moved by a mechanism, not shown, in the direction indicated by an arrow 28, the arm 22 and the latching plate 23 being drawn into abutment with one of the stops 24 so that the pile of cigars 20 in the channel 19 slide downwards a short distance and rest with the lowest cigar located in a compartment 16, after which the movable stand section 4 with the rollers 8, 9, 13, 14, and 18 and the channel 19 are set in motion. The compartments 16 are enlarged one after the other by the rollers 15, 18 and each receives a cigar 20 from the channel 19. At the same time, the belt 10 is wound off the roller 14 and the belt 5 wound onto the roller 9 while cigars fall down into the shaft between the rollers 8, l3 and the walls of the channel 19 as cigars are inserted into the compartments 16. When the shaft has reached the wall 7, the movement is interrupted and the am is moved in the opposite direction. The latching arm 22 is pivoted by arm 25 anticlockwise to abut the other stop 24, the latching plate 23 being inserted under the lower outlet opening of the channel 19 and stopping the downward supply of cigars, after which the movable stand section 4 executes a return movement until the shaft is close to the wall 12. Before the work cycle described above can be repeated, the belt 17 must be advanced to step encompassing all the compartments 16 filled during the preceding work cycle, this taking place most conveniently during the return movement of the stand section section 4. If the speed, at which the belt 17 is advanced, is not too great, the relative speed between the belt 17 and the stand section 4 may be sufiiciently low to permit the downward supply of cigars into the compartments 16 during the return movement of the stand section 4 as well, the latching means 22, 23 then obviously being removed.

If a certain variation in the width of the shaft between the belts 5 and 10 above the channel 19 is acceptable, the wind-on and wind-off rollers 9, 14 can be moved up to the position of the pulley rollers 8, 13 as shown in FIG. 4, this reducing the demand on space.

FIG. 5 shows a further modification of the arrangement illustrated in FIGS. 13, each carrier member 5, 10 being arranged to form an endless belt. The wind-on and wind-off rollers 9, 14 in FIG. 1 have been removed and the belts 5, 10 have been drawn around two further pulley rollers 29, 30 rotatably mounted on the stand section 4 and both ends of the belts have been attached directly in the container 2. In this case it is not necessary to wind the bands on and off and thus neither is any mechanism required to drive the wind-on and wind-off rollers.

The same applies to the modification shown in FIG. 6, in which a single long, wide belt 31 is attached to the wall 7 of the container 2 and runs around the pulley roller 8 on the stand section 4, around four pulley rollers 32, 33, 34, 35 rotatably mounted in the stand 1, around the pulley roller 13 on the stand section 4 and finally is attached by its other end to the wall 12 of the container 2. Two parallel narrow belts or two lines may be used instead of a wide belt 31, the loop arranged over the pulley rollers 33, 34 being divided into two parts, which can be led on either side of the container 2, directly between the pulley rollers 32 and 35. The arrangement shown in FIG. 6 is constructed to feed the cigars 20 down into open compartments in a belt 37 advanced step-bystep in the direction indicated by an arrow 36 during movement of the stand section. 4 in both directions. To stop the supply of cigars through the channel 19 in the turning positions of the stand section 4, two latching plates 38, 39 firmly attached to the stand 1 are arranged at the turning points, which plates perform the same function as the movable latching plate 23in FIG. 1.

In certain cases it is desirable for the lower outlet opening of the feed shaft to be firmly fixed in relation to the arrangements stand. In the invention this simply means that the container, with the ends of the support members attached close to the opposite container walls, must be movably arranged in relation to the discharge shaft. Thus, in the embodiments described above the movable stand section 4 with the parts attached to it must be fixed in a stand, while the container 2 with the parts stated to be fixed in relation to it is arranged on a movable stand section. A more convenient solution in the majority of cases, however, is to make the movable stand section 4 pivot around a shaft located in the lower outlet opening of the channel parallel to the longitudinal direction of the objects. Such an embodiment is shown in FIG. 7, in which the cigars are fed one after another in their longitudinal direction onto an endless conveyor belt 38, which is advanced across the rollers 39'. The stand section is mounted on pins 39, which project from the end walls of the stand section 4 and is provided with an arm 40 to which a reciprocating actuating arm 41 is hinged.

The pivotal stand section 4 may also be mounted on pins located higher up on the stand section 4, at half the height of the channel 19 for example, and be provided with known means for discharging an object in one or both pivotal positions.

In all of the embodiments shown it may be convenient to arrange the movable stand section 4 and the carrier arm so that the stand section 4 can, when necessary, be moved beyond one of the turning points sufficiently far for the upper opening of the shaft 19 to come outside the sidewall of the container. Such a measure makes it possible in a simple manner to empty the shaft without the need to remove the objects in the container 2 in advance.

The invention can also be applied to advantage in cigarette packing machines, in which it has thus far been difficult to achieve a sufficiently even flow of cigarettes from a container down through several parallel feed channels. Irregularities in the flow have been caused primarily by a strong tendency for the cigarettes to arch in the container and by an adverse effect of the devices used to overcome this arching, which devices interfere with the downward supply of cigarettes into the upper opening of the channels. In one type of machine of this kind a batch of cigarettes is pushed over from the lower part of the channels to a stationary container on a conveyor belt, which is movable step-by-step. The shaft, comprising several channels, and the container can be constructed in accordance with what was shown in FIG. 1 for example. The transfer of the batches of cigarettes may conveniently take place when the shaft is halfway between the walls 7 and 12 and the movable stand section 4 can be constructed to move alternately towards one wall and the other 7, l2 and back between the transfers to fill cigarettes into the channels of the shaft.

It is particularly advantageous, however, to apply the invention in another type of cigarette packing machine, namely one in which the batches of cigarettes are transferred by a movable carriage from the channels to holders on a continuously moving conveyor belt. By utilising the reciprocating movement of the shaft in the arrangement according to the invention, the batches of cigarettes can be transferred to the holders without using a movable carriage, at the same time that arching is effectively prevented without the need to arrange any mechanisms in the container. An arrangement of this kind is shown in FIG. 8, the main difference from the one illustrated in FIG. 1 being that the shaft 19 is divided into a plurality of channels by partition walls 42 at the upper edges of which rollers 46 are rotatably mounted parallel to the cigarettes 20 and that the batches of cigarettes are discharged in the longitudinal direction of the cigarettes from the lower part of the shaft 19 to. holders 43 on a continuously moving conveyor belt 44 by means of a piston, not shown, in a discharge mechanism. The discharge of a batch of cigarettes is arranged to take place while the movable stand section 4 is moving in the direction indicated by an arrow 45, which also indicates the direction of movement of the belt 44, with the lower part of the shaft 19 located directly in front of a holder 43. When the batch of cigarettes has been placed in the holder 43, the piston of the discharge mechanism is drawn back and the stand section 4 moved back towards the wall 7 while the channels are filled with cigarettes. The time available for filling the lower part of the channels with cigarettes is substantially greater than in the case where the batches of cigarettes are transferred from a stationary shaft to a moving holder by a movable carriage which, in principle, comprises the lower part of the shaft, as the cigarettes are fed into in an extremely short period when it is at rest in its starting position.

To facilitate the feeding of cigarettes into the upper part of the shaft 19, the rollers 46 are suitably driven by a rubber belt or the like driven by one or'both of the rollers 8, 13, in such a manner that the direction of rotation and peripheral speed of the rollers 46 is the same as the direction of rotation and peripheral speed of the rollers 8, 13.

In the embodiments shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, the rollers 9, 14 are driven either in the same manner as that shown in FIG. 1 or in one of the ways mentioned in the introduction. The rollers 8, 13 may also of course be dispensed with and replaced by the rollers 9, 14 as shown in FIG. 4.

I claim:

1. An apparatus for discharging from a container rodshaped objects, especially cigars, cigar bunches, or cigarettes, lying parallel to each other and to two opposite sidewalls of said container, each of said sidewalls having a bottom edge, comprising a stand supporting said container, a movable stand section, means for journalling said stand section beneath said container, two spaced rollers having axes of rotation positioned in parallel with said objects, means to rotatably journal said rollers on said stand section, support means of easily flexible material attached to said stand and extending at least from said bottom edges of saidsidewalls to said rollers and around at least a .portion of said rollers, means for keeping said support means of easily flexible material taut, said support means forming a bottom of said container and presenting an inlet opening of a discharge shaft defined by the interspace between said rollers, and means for moving said stand section to and from between positions in which the inlet opening of said discharge shaft is positioned adjacent said bottom edges of said sidewalls.

2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said support means have free ends that are wound around said rollers which are provided with a drive mechanism for tauting said support means.

3. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said rollers are designed as pulley rollers and that said support means are wound around wind-on and wind-off rollers which are rotatably mounted in the movable stand section and driven by a mechanism for tauting said support means.

4. An apparatus as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that said wind-on and wind-off rollers are provided with sprocket wheels which roll against a chain which is fixedly mounted in relation to said container.

5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that said wind-on and wind-off rollers are provided with sprocket wheels which roll against a chain which is fixedly mounted in relation to said container.

6. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said support means comprise two endless belts extending around said rollers and for each belt a further roller mounted on the movable stand section.

7. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said support means additionally extend via a plurality of pulley rollers which are fixedly mounted in relation to said container, from one of said rollers to the other roller.

8. An apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein said support means are connected to said stand by means of resilient members.

9. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said discharge shaft is divided into several, substantially parallel channels by partition walls attached to the movable stand section, with rollers rotatably mounted at the upper edges of these walls, which rollers are preferably driven with the same peripheral speed and the same direction of rotation as the two rollers for said support means, which latter rollers define the width of said discharge shaft.

10. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said movable stand section is slidably mounted in a rectilinear, horizontal ath in the transverse directipn of said ob'ects,

1. An apparatus as claimed 1n claim 2, w erein said movable stand section is pivotally mounted around a shaft located beneath the container, parallel to the longitudinal direction of said objects.

12. An apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein said support means are connected to said stand by means of resilient members. 

